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tv   Public Affairs  CSPAN  November 8, 2012 10:00am-1:00pm EST

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guest: john boehner said he was looking for a golf game with the president. i do not know, talking to the obama campaign during the election, they were confronting an angry set of voters, even those who supported them. the theatrics in washington -- we have heard a lot of callers talk about this. i don't know if they have a place right now. this is an extremely urgent thing they have to address. it could have real consequences on recovery, really end it, and i do not think we will see a lot of that. i do not think the president wants to strike that tone. i think it will be pretty serious. it does not mean they will not try to get together in some kind of setting, but i do not think it will be seen the light it was in summer 2011. host: we want to thank our two white house reporters.
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thank you both for being here. that does it for today's "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. with more of your questions and comments via phone and twitter. thanks for watching. host: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] emma we continue with election analysis to date on the c-span networks -- >> we continue with election analysis. coming up, we will be live with congressional quarterly's election analysis. a series of discussions breaking down the elections and what will happen next as a result. 10:15 is a look at the lame-duck session the devils and will
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carry over to the new congress. later, the american enterprise institute has more election analysis. they're expected to focus on what the election means for the next congress and the deciding factors for voters. that will be live at noon eastern on c-span. >> c-span programming is good because they try to cover both sides of the issues, and the moderators, especially on the "washington journal" did a good job of staying detached and not offering opinions. they get very comprehensive about covering the house and senate and different other -- woodrow wilson center and different other public affairs centers that i would not normally be exposed to. >> jeff wright watches c-span on comcast. c-span, brought to you as a public service by your
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television provider. we continue election analysis with live coverage of a congressional quarterly forum starting at 10:15 eastern. right now, house speaker john major held a briefing yesterday on avoiding automatic budget cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff -- john boehner held a briefing yesterday. he did not take questions. >> good afternoon, everyone. let me offer my congratulations to president obama and the first lady and joe biden. i hope to the election were turned out differently. mitt romney and paul ryanair good men and leaders. i want to wish them well.
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the american people have spoken. they have reelected president obama and they have again reelected a republican majority in the house of representatives. if there is a mandate yesterday, it is a mandate to work together on the solutions to the challenges we face as a nation. my attitude is not a confrontation but conviction. we face a series of tremendous challenges and a great opportunity. weeks away from now looms the so-called fiscal clef. a combination of automatic tax increase mandated by law. within months of the fiscal cliff, congress will be asked to raise the debt ceiling. legislation will be needed to keep the government running as a continuing resolution under which we are currently operating expires. amid all of the short-term hurdles, we face the greatest challenge of all, a massive debt that is smothering growth and exceeding the size of our economy.
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there will be many who will say with the election over, we should confront the first challenges by electing the top two tax rates expire and pushing it off to somewhere else. they have lessing based in the same temporary policies that have put this into this fix. now they are saying, let's have more of the same. let's to drive our economy of the fiscal cliff and we will call it a day. that might get us out of town but it will not get us out of the problem and it will hurt our economy. we cannot keep going on like that, we cannot set the bar that low. it is time we raise the bar. the american people this week did give us a mandate to simply do the simple thing -- they elected us to lead.
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they gave us a mandate to work together to do the best for our country. we know what the best thing is, an agreement that sends the signal to our economy and to the world that after years of hunting on the fiscal challenges we face, -- punting the fiscal challenges we face, 2013 is going to be different. if we want to lift the cloud of debt hanging over our country. we will not solve the problem overnight. we certainly will not do it in a lame-duck session of conference -- congress. it will not be solved by taking a plunge of the fiscal cliff. what we can do is avoid it in a manner that serves as a catalyst for major solutions enacted in 2013 to begin to solve the problem. republican majority stands ready to work with the president to do what is best for our
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country. that is exactly what i told the president earlier today. that is the will of the people and we will answer to them. doing what is best means considering the impact of the policies that will be set in motion. princeton young says going over part of the fiscal " read a cliff -- fiscal cliff would cost more than 70,000 jobs. it also confirmed many of those hit with a rate increase will be small business owners, the very people who both parties acknowledge are that he to private sector job creation. there is an alternative. it involves making real changes to the financial changes and reforming our tax code to curb special interest loopholes and deductions. by working together in creating a cleaner tax code, we can get
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our country is stronger, healthier economy. that means more revenue, which is what the president wants. because the american people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to except additional revenue by way of tax reform. there is a model that supports economic growth. in 1986, with a democrat house, and a republican president named ronald reagan. in 1986, there were skeptics who doubted the economic benefits of tax reform. those skeptics were wrong. a stanford economist said the 1986 reform is the sort of an unsung hero of the good economic times we have had for a long time. the time has come again to revamp the tax code. and if we do, he argues, there will be a response and revenue will come in. but american people also expect us to solve the problem.
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for that reason, in order to garner republican support for new revenues, the president must reduce spending and shore up entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt. if we're not seeking to impose our will on the president, we are asking him to make good god in his balanced approach. he has called for a balanced approach to the deficit, increase revenues. that is not balanced if it means higher taxes on small businesses that are the key to getting our country moving again in keeping a moving. a balanced approach is not balanced by increasing the amount of money coming into the coffers of government without cutting spending and addressing entitlements of the same time. a balanced approach is not balance if it is done in the washington way of raising taxes now and ultimately failing to cut spending in the future.
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a balanced approach is not balanced if it means cutting the defense instead of making the common-sense cuts that are needed. real economic growth to elude us in the first term of the president. without it, we cannot solve our debt problem. for the purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement, we're willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions. what matters is where the increase comes from and what type of reform comes with it. does the increased revenue come from government taking a larger share of what the american people earning? or does it come as a byproduct of growing our economy, energized by a simpler tax code, with fewer loopholes and lower rates for all? at the same time, are we supporting growth by taking concrete steps to put our country's entitlement programs on a sounder financial footing
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or are we going to continue to avoid a matter, the root of the problem? shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code, closing deductions, and moving to a simpler system will bring jobs home and result in a stronger, healthier economy. history teaches that this is the right path to take. tax reform, done in the manner i have described, will result in additional revenue that the president wants. it will support economic growth, which means more revenue generated for the treasury. it will improve the efficiency of the tax system, which means additional revenue as well. we're closer than many think to the critical mass that is needed to get tax reform done. the president and i talked about it did during the summer of 2011.
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they offered proposals in the so-called super committee that provided revenue via tax reform. to get economy moving again is the only way we will be able to balance the federal budget. the question we should be asking, is not which taxes should i race to get more revenue, but which reforms can we agree on that will get our economy moving again? there are two ipads we can take to get to revenue. -- two paths we can take to get revenue. feeding the growth of our economy through a better tax code will. the president has signaled a willingness to do tax reform with lower rates. republicans have signaled a willingness to accept new revenue, if it comes from growth and reform. let's start the discussion there. i am not suggesting we
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compromise our principles but i am suggesting we commit ourselves to creating an atmosphere where we can seek common ground and seized it. if we cannot find common ground, we will continue to operate on a tax code on a year-to-year basis. emmys will continue to extend major programs for a month at a time. it means we will face expiration of the government's borrowing authority. and we will be on constant downgrade watch from our creditors. in the new testament, there is a parable. one man who built his house on sand and the other who built his house on rock. the foundation of the economy, the rock of our economy, has always been small businesses and the private sector. i ran one of the small businesses and i can tell you raising a small business tax means they do not grow. in small businesses do not grow, our economy does not grow.
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if our economy does not grow, we do not have a prayer of digging our country out of a hole that we call our national debt. this is like going over part of the fiscal cliff is no solution at all. instead of building a house on sand, let's bill that on iraq. instead of raising small business taxes, -- let's built in on a rock. instead of raising small- business taxes, let's plan for a serious process, focused on substance, not on theatrics. it will require weeks of work, rather than a week and a photo ops. it will not happen around the campfire or in a secret room of some air force base, over 18 holes of golf. this will take time. if we are striving for a solution, i am confident we can get there. mr. president, this is your moment.
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we are ready to be led. not as democrats or republicans that as americans. we want you to leave, not as a liberal or conservative, but as president of the united states. we want you to succeed. lead to challenge ourselves to find the common ground that has deluded us. let's rise above the the function and do the right thing together for our country. thank you. >> could you clarify on tax reform? [inaudible] >> since that briefing yesterday, the house minority leader released the following statement last night in reaction to the election. she said -- house democrats more than doubled the seats gain, and she went on to say --
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we will continue to update with post-election briefings and remarks by members of congress as they become available. >> ok, i need some help over here. >> can you try to get out without anyone knowing? >> he was issued this bottle today. he has taken 10 tablets. >> that is ridiculous. >> at some point, he could stop breathing if he took too much narcotics. >> we will be doing cpr on the patient. >> we ended up following him
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after this plane ride for many months, as i said, and he ended up injuring himself -- injuring himself into an innovative program at walter reed where they ended up using acupuncture, meditation, other techniques to wean them off of all the drugs that he was on, and through this program, he was able to walk out on his own two feet, so i really commend the military for two things -- one, allowing us to tell the story, the good and bad, but also for recognizing this problem. by recognizing there is this problem of over medication and that they are looking for outside the box ideas on how to fix it. the metaphor is that the status quo is not working and we need to start working on out of the
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box ideas. >> sunday night at 8:00 on c- span's "q&a." and live pictures from the ronald reagan building here in washington today. cq roll call is hosting its post-election impact conference. there will be a series of panel discussions today examining the exit polls, the new congressional make a, economic issues, and how all of this affects lobbying in the upcoming lame duck session in the next four years. we expect this to start in just a moment. live coverage here on c-span.
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>> again we're live at the ronald reagan building in washington, awaiting the start electionl call's impact conference. we will have this live for u.s. and as it gets under way here on c-span. in the meantime, the christian science monitor is hosting what they are calling the monitor breakfast, and senator charles schumer of new york, the vice chair of the democratic conference and also the chair of the summer credit policy and communications center, is there this morning providing an update on recovery efforts in new york and those affected by hurricane sandy, offering thoughts also on tax reform as part of the upcoming battle over the fiscal cliff, talking about the legislative outlook for the balance of 2012. senator schumer says he expects
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additional funding will be needed for fema responds to sandy, and he also says social security should not be part of the grand bargain, and it can be considered on the side. we are recording this conference with the "christian science monitor" and we will have senator schumer's remarks for you a little bit later in the day. again, waiting for the start of this post-election analysis hosted by cq roll call. while we wait, here phone calls from this morning's "washington journal." host: the two sides wasted no time staking out their positions on the potential
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crisis that is 54 days away. the expiration of almost every tax cut enacted since 2001, which could raise the average u.s. household tax burden by $3,500 and the first $110 billion of $1.20 trillion in spending cuts that to occur over 10 years." this is what the leaders of the chambers of congress had to say yesterday. we will begin with senate majority leader harry reid and move on to the house speaker. >> they are tired of these policies -- partisan gridlock, tired of things like, "well, i have one goal -- defeat obama." that is gone. obama was elected overwhelmingly. americans want us to work together. republicans want us to work together. democrats want us to work together. they want a balanced approach to everything, but especially the situation we have dealing with
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this huge deficit and taxes are a part of that. >> the american people have spoken. they have reelected president obama, and they have to get reelected a republican majority in the house of representatives. if there is a mandate in yesterday's results, it is a mandate for us to find a way to work together on the solutions for the challenges we all face as a nation. my message today is not one of confrontation but one of conviction. mr. president, this is your moment. we are ready to be led -- not as democrats or republicans, but as americans. we want you to lead -- not as a liberal or conservative, but as president of the united states of america. we want you to succeed. let's challenge ourselves to find the common ground that has eluded us. let's rise above the dysfunction and do the right thing together for our country. host: democratic caller in
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pennsylvania, you are up first. what is your message to washington? caller: i really think that there is compromise in the air in a really positive way. so wonderful in my mind that president obama has been elected, and i believe people can now start to work together as not so much just politicians, but people who are going to help to solve problems and really move forward in a positive way. some of the comments i have heard on c-span since the election, some negative comments i have heard -- i have heard a lot of positive comments, but so many negative ones that i think simply have no validity. trying to portray him as somebody who is just not doing well -- >> you can see this segment in its entirety. go to our website, c-span.org.
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we go live to election analysis posted by cq roll call. >> nobody else did in the first panel, and i was kind of amazed. the lame duck will be the last time this year and probably for the foreseeable future when the house democratic caucus will be made up of majority white men. the election results this week assured next year that white men will be a minority of the house democrats. sort of an amazing change that reflects what we talked about this morning, so -- and sort of a bridge to the next panel, which my colleague will moderate. we have two veterans of this conference with us, and it ought to be good. >> hello. we are all white males, how did you like that? so what do we know? i am senior editor at "roll call
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and a 16-year veteran of the mclaughlin group and a 16-year veteran of fox news, and any of you who ever watches either of those will know that not only am i glad to be here, i am glad to be anywhere i can finish a sentence without getting interrupted. [laughter] i like to say i was there at the beginning of the end of civil discourse, but we will have civil discourse today for sure. on the far right here, not politically, is norm ornstein, a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute, a longtime contributing editor @ "roll call." next to him, senior scholar at the brookings institution. these two wrote one book recently -- a few years ago called "the broken branch: how congress is failing america and have to get it back on track."
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nobody followed their advice, so they just came out with a new book called "it is even worse than it looks: how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism." that book is a best-seller, and i encourage you to go out and get it. i would like to see it made into a movie. a horror movie, it would be. the 112th congress, i think we will agree, is one of the worst in terms of production in american history -- recent american history, anyway. governing by continuing resolution, endless filibusters, bills' passing the house never seeing the light of day in the senate. we almost defaulted on the national debt and so on. the 112th congress has one last chance when it returns for the
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lame duck session, and, of course, the major rite of businesses the fiscal cliff, which amounts to the endgame of this congress having filled about a dozen gigantic barrels with fiscal high explosives and rolling them down hills toward december 31 where they may of crash and bring the economy down with it to a tune of what the cbo estimates to be 3.5% of gdp next year where our growth rate is 2%, so we will be back in a recession. the question of are we going off the fiscal cliff or are we not -- why don't you start, norm? >> since you did mention foxes, i wanted to start by congratulating karl rove and
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dick morris for their spot on analysis -- since you did mention fox news. i did want to talk about david axelrod had the line of the year who said, "i had a foot in my mouth many times in my life, but it has always been my own." i think that takes care of dick morris. let me start by noting the lame duck session is also going to attempt to do other things. there are other things to clean up. one is the farm bill. it is something i mentioned because it reflects on the dynamic over the fiscal cliff that here we have an instance in which the senate united in a broad, bipartisan way with, i believe, 74 votes for a farm bill at the time of the worst drought since the great depression with some sense of urgency, particularly because livestock farmers were just in desperate, desperate straits,
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and the house did nothing. even leading up to an election, did nothing, and it is still hanging fire. they promised to pass the bill. they did nothing because basically, they have faced a conservative revolt because the bill did not cut food stamps and of -- enough. it is a template out there. the house sat on a bill for months because they gave in with a diluted version, and one of the things that will be most interesting watch, as the fiscal cliff approaches, what could well be another instance of commendable broad bipartisan coming together on a template from the fix that that coalition that hits the wall and house again. i mention one other thing, which is the cyber security bill,
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which is the result of some sense of urgency, and you have an interesting set of tensions inside the senate. you have a bill that was put together by joe lieberman, soon departing, and susan collins, done in a thoroughly bipartisan way, and joe lieberman's closest friends in the senate said no, this is not good enough. there was enormous tension among them. so there is going to be an interesting question of whether lieberman, who is going to push very hard -- this is his last legacy -- is going to be able to prevail upon his colleagues to get that bill or some version of it through, and of course if it did not, and we will see basically the actions taken by executive fiat, which is even more anathema to senators
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mccain, graham, and others. that is a sideshow, a three-ring circus, and have a couple of side rings, that remained in the bombings as well. one thing i would say about the fiscal cliff, at one level you could say there's no great sense of urgency. as many people have said, it is more a fiscal slump than clef. it is not like we're going to plunge into the horrible up this immediately. there are many things that an administration can do to ameliorate the impact of many of the tax cuts and of the budget cuts. there are some significant amounts of discussion about how you deal with budgets. you can move accounts aren't among the things related to public safety. it is not quite the same as it was when we had the shutdown of the government in 1995, but
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there is a lot of discretion there, and among other things, you can have an administration that the sides -- that decides to not to effectively change withholding rates to keep the immediate impact of the tax cuts from taking hold. you can do that for only certain time. that is true. on the other hand, things like the doc fix, also as part -- expire, are not easily ameliorated, and you could end up with serious issues on the medicare program on january 1 without getting some kind of change. all of that plays into what could well be a game of brinksmanship, game of chicken, between the white house, the president, and especially republicans in the house. we have seen the scenarios out there. the tax cuts expire, the
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president immediately propose is one of the largest tax cuts in history for all except one% of the public, and puts the onus back on an obstructionist party that has gotten away with that when the president wanted to do things and blocking them hurt, but where in action -- inactino hurts the other side more, and that includes defense cuts that are in the works. if you have a president that can use an executive discretion -- remember bill clinton, the national parks close, and you got a huge public outcry. there are lots of things you can shut down that will have people saying what the hell's going on here, this is not what we voted for. let me raise the others in the area that i think is now becoming an increasingly possible scenario, increasingly in part because simpson and bowles announced a new rapid-up
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plan to try to push a resolution that they had been working on it with a fix that the coalition in the senate. we have had some conflicting messages in the last few days. john boehner started with the tough-minded might message election eve -- we have as big a mandate as he does with the returning republican majority in the house. but then moved to softer rhetoric. we want to work with the president, we understand there have to be some revenues. if you parcel out a statement, it was an additional revenues by cutting taxes further, because if you cut the tax rates, the revenues will come in. that is not quite the same thing. it also reminds me of what we saw with rhetoric in december and january of 2008, 2009.
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we want to work with the president on a stimulus package, and then not a single republican vote. as we learned in our research as it was reported in a fine book on the stimulus, when david obey called in his counterpart jerry lewis to discuss it, he said, jerry, we're going to do a stimulus, the country is back on its back, i want you to go back your leaders and find out what is -- what they would like included, but tell me the things you would not accept. lewis laughed and pointed up and said come i'm sorry, david, i have orders we're not going to cooperate. if what we get is a similar phenomenon, a public presentation of the willingness to work with drawing lines in the dust, we get a different phenomenon. mitch mcconnell took a much harder line, and it really was
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he has a mandate for his failed policies. that is not what this election was about. anything that happens now asked to meet the approval of the house republicans, or it is not going anywhere. that i think is in many ways also a false bluster, because what we see going on in the senate is riling change that mcconnell does not necessarily control, which is 48 senators from across the board working with the fix that debt coalition and the business community to come up with a simpson-bowles template. there will not be a plan. >> what you see is the scenario for the link up? >> especially on the fiscal cliff? >> you will not see much difference between this on this. mort, i think it is impossible to write serious law during a
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lame duck that would constitute an agreement with any substance other than, and something set up behind them once again, to go into the fact if the next congress does not actually produce them. but the idea that they could do something that delivers on the promise of tax reform, which, when you really come down to it, was asserted in -- of the republican no new taxes' pledge. they have signed onto this with their blood oaths, grover norquist, and the club for growth and others are out there in primaries reinforcing the importance of keeping to it, and there is just a lot of investment in this. and yet everyone outside of
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them in the policy community and the real world understand, as long as that pledge is held to, nothing of consequence can be done. so the idea -- and understandably -- that bowles-simpson did, they were a little vague about it, other than the revenues they would have to produce, but republicans kept saying here in the campaign that that means we are born to lower tax rates. frankly, the possibility of lowering tax rates, paying for all that, and producing revenues for deficit reduction are close to zero. maybe we ought to just say zero. is impossible. it will not work. and now in the aftermath of the
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election, it is perfectly clear that the president would never let anything of that sort go through. so there we are. what happens? can they come up with something the expirations of the tax cuts and the sequestration until they have time to act? they could do it simply, but that would entail the president going back on his promise of not extending the tax rates for the upper 1%. my guess is he will agree to a short-term extension absent that element. and actually extend other things that he likes that were part of the stimulus. the question is, will the house
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republicans agree to that? it is not clear to me that they will or that boehner can do anything else. the question is, will he be courageous enough to allow a rule to go forward, and with that rule garner a majority for most, if not all, democrats, plus enough republicans to pass it, and then pass the measure? i do not know. he probably would lose his speakership as a consequence, but it may happen. >> that may excite four possibilities and get you to put you on the spot to give you -- put a percentage on the likelihood of this. number one, the grand bargain done by the end of this year? that is to say, at least in
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terms of a framework, but a deal that solves that both the debt problem, tax reform, and the tax element of it to escape that fiscal click on a long-term basis? >> if we are on to start with that one, there is maybe a 30% chance of a framework deal. the framework they are working out that in the senate, because there's no plan. we did not have a full-blown legislative package for any of those, and it is one where basically you have a promise of a certain amount of revenues with an order of the ways and means and finance committees that comes up with those of revenue by a date certain, six months down the road, that there would be a certain amount taken from the growth of medicare and medicaid, and committees, given an order to do that, that you defer while the domestic and dispensed -- defense discretionary cuts, but have
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something specific that moves away from-across the board sequesters. i can see that getting to the senate. there is a real chance, maybe even 50%, chance, that the senate could pass that with a super majority, but it comes down to a 10% chance, 20% chance that it passes the house. >> the most they could get is a framework agreement, but the probability of that passing in the house is low. the other problem with that is it looks like it is simply kicking the can down the road, because there is no guarantee that the committees will actually report something out that accomplishes that, that in turn can garner majorities in the house and senate and be signed by the president. so i have a feeling we are going
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to have to play some hardball kumbayae have higheour moment. there is room to do that, because if our instinct is right about the senate republicans and find 10 or 12 -- who will not include mitch mcconnell up for reelection in twa zero years -- and they actually do it, the president has enormous possibilities for putting pressure on with a good chunk of the business community with him and actually producing some response. >> so all of these possibilities are kind of mushing together in these images. the grand bargain by the end of this is zero? >> zero. >> the second possibility is we
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do not go off the fiscal cliff, we kick the can down the road with fairly credible in structure, norm thinks that is 30%, and you think it is what? >> a little lower. >> ok, third possibility is we take the countdown -- we kick the can down the republican that -- we kick the can down the road, we cannot do it, we extend the tax cuts for some time and just revisit everything in 2013. what do you think the percentage chances of that are? >> i think they are fairly low. they are higher because you have every elected president. if obama were a lame duck president, the incentive for republicans to negotiate with him would be close to zero. i see this happening over -- only if they are inching toward
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a deal. they're not quite there yet. then you take down the can for a couple months to reach that point. if they are not near a deal, there's no incentive on the part of the president to put this off for two months. >> so you think it is a look possibility that we just kick the can into 2013. >> i think there is a better possibility of it because the president would sign it of kicking the can absent the extension of the bush tax cuts for the 1%. >> the last one is what is the percentage likelihood of falling off the fiscal cliff? in other words, we did not get a deal, the deadlines come, the tax rates go up, the sequester goes into effect. granted that they can fiddle with the implementation of it, but nonetheless, the stock
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market goes to hell at the end of the year because political system is again revealed to be broken, and all the other consequences prevail. what is the percentage change of that? >> let me say, worked, as a predicate, i suspect for all of this we may need the stock market to go to hell before we get a deal. keep in mind the tarp example. remember that at the worst possible moment when the world was at the edge of a deep depression, the house republicans voted against the plan that came from their own president that had been endorsed by their presidential candidate and all their leaders until the dow dropped 700-plus points, which back then was a big deal. then came back and passed in time. that may have to happen. i am more sanguine that we will reach the second point, with a
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template, because the senate feels urgency to do so. i think there is a significant chance that we actually go off the cliff. there has been a reaction from the public because of medicare as anything else, and the president would prefer not to sign something, and i did not think congressional republicans will go along with something that just leaves the tax cut aside. that you would get a public backlash and you would get a fairly quick movement. there's a real chance of that happening. >> under that scenario, we would get to the end of the year but no agreement, and then we would have a january in the fact where there was chaos or anticipated chaos, and the markets riled. do not get back and tell when? >> they have to come back on january 6 to cap the electoral votes and do some housekeeping. then they are scheduled to be away until the inaugural basically come out and it does not mean they will be.
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keep in mind that the chaos can be managed by the president to put maximum pressure on republicans and ease some of the pressure in other ways. you can ease up what happens with tax cuts, especially for working people, and you can manage some of the budget cuts under the sequester so that it brings discomfort in other ways, which you cannot manage where -- fix.well with wherthe doc >> that is one of the possibilities? >> that might be up there was some kind of a template, in effect, kicking the can down the road to play. >> my view this is most likely, the second being the framework. >> going off the thistle cliff in one manner or another, even if it is a slope rather than the catastrophic cliff, you
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think is the likeliest possibility? >> i do, but i also think it will lead to substantial agreement probably in the first six months of 2013 that will move this issue off the table. >> i thought the president's speech in chicago, what left out was his offer to governor romney that he would like to meet with him to talk about ways of moving forward. that probably was not met with great eagerness by governor romney, who was in mourning, but at the same time, it puts romney in a difficult position and could potentially give some leverage to obama. remember some other republican narrative is going to be sandy, is what made a difference. why? because you saw this enormous public embrace of the idea of
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bipartisanship at a time of great stress in the country, bell bromance twain obama and chris christie was kind of like a cross between "i spy" and laurel and hardy. you have got that, and you had run the talking about how i will reach out, i will find common ground. obama calls in and says we need a common ground. i need you to be my emissary to congressional republicans and get them to go along with the simpson-bulls tied grand bargain. what does from the same? at the same time, while congressional republicans are not want to exactly dow down to governor romney, and remember when paul ryan after the 2010 elections, he was an icon for them, came back to the freshmen and said we cannot do the budget cuts we promised you right now. they threw him out of the room. they are not 6 " to be eager to do that. you can gain significant leverage by moving in that direction, and it would not surprise me that obama has a
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couple of cards up his sleeve to turn the bully pulpit into a more potent weapon in the next month. >> there are other ways of doing that. one is i think he will have simpson and bowles by his side on this. he has already committed to using that as the framework. there is evidence around that the white house has been working on revisions to that, giving it some specifics that would make it palatable to him and to most democrats as well, and there is also an effort to begin to pull out some major figures in the business community to be at his side. he would not go off the cliff without first having demonstrated what an agreement with book like -- would look
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like, and having it will support, including potentially some senate republicans with him. it would in effect be a decision of the house republicans to go off. that is how he would frame it. >> so when it would you expect obama to emerge with a plan, and when with this grand event, mpson-bowles and jeff immel t, coming together? >> we need a caddie at, because i remember several months where i would talk to the gang of six and a said they have a plan, which are not quite there, and it took them many money months to do it. hear from the gang of 40 and a gain of eight is we're getting close, we're almost there, very tricky to find out how you can do this. presumably the way you do it is
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erie e-zpass a reconciliation bill, another reconciliation bill that orders the committees to come up plans by date certain, but it is not cleared you can do another reconciliation bill right now. you do not have a budget plan that enables you to do it. there are some tricky balance of it. obama will not come out with his own plan. that style does not change. he wants senate and simpson and bowles and the business leaders to have a plan which he will embrace, and that is when you have this moment at the white house where he has got all these people, tom coburn on one side, since then and jimmy dimond and jeff immelt on the other side, saying we need to move forward, some of these things i find unpalatable, but now speaker boehner , what are you
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going to do? when will that plan be there? it ought to be there now, presumably. their whole idea is we emerge with this right after the election, but my guess is within a week we will see obama trying to lay the groundwork for making this happen. >> you mentioned the gang of 40 and the gang of eight. --se are key to t zeropo >> the gang of eight is an expanded version of the gang of six. am i like the gang of three. >> who? >> tom coburn, saxby chambliss, we have kent conrad, who is still there, and dick durbin, and mark warner, and they have added another democrat who i will think of before we're done here. michael bennett.
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they have been working with a total of 40 senators, 20 on each side, who have been participating on and off to pull all this together. the framework is the same framework that we have had from all of these groups. it is a total of $4 trillion in debt reduction over 10 years, somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.30 trillion the coming of the revenue side, and then a balance of defense, discretionary, domestic, and entitlements. probably including, as we saw the negotiations with boehner and obama, social security in the next, although you had a lot of democrats who are pushing against that, and there was a big at in "the washington post" today laying out their markets. is much more the procedural hangups that keeping them from reaching that there. you will see a white house emissaries, probably jack lew,
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trying to pull it altogether. there is your doubt in my mind that they reach an agreement that obama immediately embraces it. >> does that agreement raise revenue by raising rates or does it raise revenue through tax reform? >> the latter. >>, you think tax reform is impossible? >> no, i think tax reform, apart from reproduction, is possible. in fact, i think some of that is already included in the obama budget, which is that you reduce the total amount of tax deductions that you can claim. you could do it overall. you could do at by category of deductions. i think there is some real possibility for gaining revenues. i just think the likelihood of cutting rates is slim to none.
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i do not see it in the cards. it is not realistic. in fact, the wild card in this, which could garner some republican support in the gang of 40, is a form of consumption tax dedicated to health care. you could do this in a progressive consumption tax of some form, but with dedicated revenues to pay for that. and medicare, and potentially medicaid, which obviates the need, getting more out of general tax revenues. >> could you see a consumption tax getting to the house of representatives? >> if it is dedicated and done anyway, i think, compared to the alternatives, it is possible. >> there are a lot of possibilities in tax reform. one of the challenges is if you
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only look at reform of income and corporate taxes, you got a real problem. you and i remember the negotiations in 1986 over tax reform. it was the last time we had a major policy initiative passed a second term as president, but it was really tough to do. that was making it revenue neutral, because you cut rates, cut people's taxes, that is fine, and then when you try to pay for it, everybody screams. try and do that and raise revenues and it is simply not doable, but if you start to get of ar and you think dedicated tax or consumption tax that replaces the income tax or replaces -- or raise revenues, or one of my favorites is a carbon tax to replace all or part of the payroll tax, logic --taxes things you want to
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reduce like carbon, do not tax things you want to enhance, like work. but that is a logic that seems still very elusive. >> it seems to me that -- boehner said the other day we are not audited this at camp david, we're not going to andrews air force base. how do we get from here to a consumption tax, which has not even been discussed? it was never discussed. whole " fiscal " was ignored even by the moderators of the debates for reasons that i cannot fathom. since there has been no buildup to a consumption tax idea, how does it passed? would the gang of 40 produce it? >> no, it would be part of the
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framework agreement over the cover of tax reform, but then you would, in the course of implementing that next year, you would begin laying the groundwork for developing support. it is very hard, but all of this heart, and i am not saying it will be part of its. i am saying serious discussion is being given to it. >> we will open the discussion to the audience. if i understand correctly, what you two guys think is likely to happen, it is that we get no agreement before the end of the year, we fall off the fiscal cliff -- it is not as steep as we anticipated it will be -- but the markets react very negatively, and then in
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negotiation begins seriously with the new congress in january, and then something happens and they deal gets reached. early next year. is that fair? >> yes, but with substantial preparation for that. it is not blindly gone off the cliff in anchor at both ends of pennsylvania avenue. is really orchestrate it. >> just boehner to stay speaker of the house under the scenario? >> that is a real open question, because it requires boehner falling on a grenade. the problem is that eric cantor and kevin mccarthy are going to reabe reaching under his belly to pull the pin and not pulling him off to avoid the explosion. it is a moment of reckoning for boehner, which is a moment he had back a little more than a year ago. with the public pressure there, it is entirely possible. mort, what do you think?
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>> i think they will not go over the fiscal cliff, that they will reach some sort of a framework agreements, that they will kick it into 2013, with instructions, and i think that john boehner is willing to fall on the grenade. and if barack obama place this right -- and do not forget, anyone who has read the bob woodward book pass the plan barack obama's lack of leadership as much as republican intransigence. i will not ask the percentages, but i know what you guys think of the percentages. barack obama is responsible, he has got to stop and be a leader as well. i think boehner will do what boehner needs to do. i hope that obama will do what he needs to do, but i think the
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chances are good and we will not suffer catastrophe, because americans somehow avoid catastrophe. >> mort, this very sensible, and in general there is a good chance of that happening. but i have to take exception to your referenced above board word -- to bob woodward. if he was an hour course, we would help him because of his arguments that barack obama failed to work his will on congress like lyndon johnson did. that is the most naive think i have ever heard in my life. the only reason this kind of presidential leadership and skilled and care is necessary now is it because it follows an election that brought obama won. effort to get back
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in power of a scorched-earth policy has failed. >> read the book in the movie is coming. questions from the audience, please. >> i am wondering what impact you think a link-up moderate senators, such as brown, lugar, college are going to have on the negotiation? >> we have been waiting for some time, including actor for example senators snowe and lugar announced they were retiring, for change, and has not been there. they continued along the path in following the leadership of senator mcconnell. whether it changes now is an open question. i suspect it will a little bit,
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and it may well for senator brown, depending on when we get an announcement or if there is an announcement that john kerry going to be named secretary of state, in which case there will be a special election down the road for that senate seat, and you will see scott brown become the great conciliator as he prepares for the election. for others, they will continue to take their clothes from what the leaders say or what the members do. there the question is whether mcconnell basically becomes at least five things a more passive actor and lets lamar alexander and bob corker and tom coburn take the lead and doing something that he will oppose in the end, cause he is mindful of 2014, as tom said. or whether you do not get that kind of impact and mcconnell
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works overtime to yank its members back into a tougher and negotiating position. if that is the case, we go right over the cliff. >> i think mitch mcconnell will not be able to sustain unified republican support behind filibusters over the long -- clusters. >> over the long, it may work to the lame-duck session, but the on but it, it is no longer possible. but norm's scenario of the quiet person in the back speaking to kentucky and allowing others to come forward makes sense. >> let me raise another issue which is important to keep in mind. the democrats will be pushing hard and pushing harry reid hard, and he is already on record to the filibuster change before. when does that happen and how does that happen? if in fact you get democrats
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saying to republicans we have had enough of this crap, air going to reform the filibuster and we will do it with a simple majority, and whether you like it or not, that creates a different dynamic in the senate, and it could have reverberations and a lot of places. >> does that hardened the lines? >> yes. it hardens the lines. you'll see efforts to make it a partisan, it diluted, approach to the filibuster coming from rl levin, orkarcal you could have missed a quiet and dormant until after these the gratian's reach an end. if you get that happening in december, the they will come back in january and do it and then have those lines hardened again. you got to keep in mind that the way in which the filibuster is handled now could create some real dynamic in terms of the willingness of the two parties
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to work together. >> questions? >> you mentioned the farm bill. could you talk specifically about the likelihood of a farm bill passing during the lame duck? >> the house leadership has been very reluctant to bring up a bill, because this was another one of those instances where it would only pass with as many democrats as republicans. there has just been this really hard-line pick it is a line that cuts across many areas. the farm bill is in part about which commodities gained and which commodities lose, and so you picked one group against the other. -- pit one group against that. given that they are on record that there will be and merge during this lame duck and that yap problems up there with a lot of devastated farmers, they have got to bring up something pretty close to the senate bill and see
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what happens to it. although i think that may happen later rather than sooner because there's nowhere near any kind of agreement of how you do this. >> you mentioned mr. mcconnell taking a back seat and a gai eight taking more of a role. are there any members that you think are now back benchers and could rise to that role over the next six weeks? >> it would almost certainly involve senators who are involved in the budget negotiations. therefore, that have experience in the gang of six and eight and 40, but i do not see any
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individual in particular one could imagine doing it at this time. if you look at this sort of leadership ranks of cornyn, those are likely candidates. it would really have to come elsewhere. >> lamar alexander is one who has not been a formal member of the gang of eight, but endorsed the plan. he was the seventh to endorse it when it first came out. and i think is in particular wanting to -- wanting the final stages of his career to be a grand bargainer or a problem solver. i mention bob corker coming back. keep an eye on john kerry, who may be at the end of this senate career. we do not know yetkerry may be
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an influential player who carry some weight with his own partisans. and also the two udalls, who i think are well respected among democrats, and mark has been very strong on the fiscal side. emerged asom coburn some of the voice of sanity? he has enormous credibility among conservatives, and yet he is a negotiator here. he is the leader of the gang of six. this is about people beyond the gang of six or the gang of eight. coburn is key, and i suspect one of the first people that comes to the white house when obama starts this process, is coburn, which is someone who he has had a pretty close personal friendship, even if they have been at odds politically. it is one of the things obama wants to have coper right up there next to him. -- coburn up there next to him.
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>> in talking about from work, i cannot hear mention of things up of eliminating the motorists -- the mortgage interest deduction, and i wonder if that could be part of the final decision? he and i do not think the mortgage interest deduction will be eliminated. i think the most likely probability of a deal will be either in aggregate limitations on deductions for a revision, a further revision of individual deductions like the mortgage interest that lowers the amount that would be allowed. i think that is how they would go about it. >> so the tax code does not get simpler? >> no, i think the probability of the tax code -- some vacation
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out of this is very low. >> ok. questions? yes. >> i am hearing more that the tax code really is not completely broken, that it works fairly well. it does need to be modified, but what is really broken are the scoring rules in congress. i would be interested in your thoughts of the you really think the tax code needs to be completely overhauled and how long would that take? and maybe comment on the scoring rules and how they impact on legislative outcomes. >> the people who own rubturbo tax not think the tax code is part of all, and that is the point, for all about how complicated it is, for most of us who do our own taxes, it is
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not like you have to work your way through this complicated equations. he put the numbers in and it comes back, you can have accountants to do it. it is a tax code that is not designed to maximize economic activity and growth. the more complicated it gets, the more difficult the effort, because in part a tax code now becomes an instrument of social policy. frankly, one of the philosophical arguments we have not had is if you are going to have government play a role in social policy, whether encouraging housing or encouraging work through things like the earned income tax credit, a republican initiative, what is the best we to do it? is it to do it through eight government programs and regulations or to tax incentive or disincentives? the more conservative route is to the tax system.
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it moves you in a direction that does not contribute necessarily to the most efficient economic process. certainly, when you work your way to the meat grinder of the ways and means and finance committees and to the way in which they scored things, which fits the political objectives and not either revenue or tax objectives, and frankly, when you go through a process where you decide as part of your budget discipline that you are wrong to cut the number of irs agents, and there we have clear and concrete facts that for every additional agent you raise huge amounts of revenue so you are cutting the legs out of your whole system, it is a pretty insane way of doing things very >> i think your question is very appropriate. the fact is there is so much talk about this now, primarily because we need to raise revenues, and one party is adamant against raising those
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revenues. at least doing it in the form of increased tax and rates. that is what we are doing through all of this. if you look at the history of taxation in this country, we went through our most productive economic periods with unbelievably high tax rates, marginal tax rates, but plenty of ways of avoiding them, and it was messy and the economy grew, and the dividends were widely shared by the public. in my view, marginal tax rates, once they are down where they have been since reagan, really, with the tax reform act of 1986, adjustments like this are not want to have any direct
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consequence for the economy. we just need revenues now, and we are born to have to have a level of taxation overall that is higher. there are better ways to do it and raising rates further. consumption tax for things we did not want to encourage, yes, and if we're starting from scratch, and we would design our tax system it differently, but we should not get lost in the weeds here of what is really needed. >> i do not know where david hawkins is, but i think we have run out of time. david, where are you? we'll continue with questions until he comes and pulls the plug. >> i have a question that ties in with what you're talking about. raising revenues versus social policy and that the for role for for a one-k and other retirement
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savings, because of the budget scoring process, a 10-year when the public and looks at the loss of revenue from difference now and does not take into account revenue you will get in the future when income starts to be taxed. >> you are certainly right, and if you are looking at the long- term debt picture and long-term revenues and particularly because as we move through this wave of baby-boomers starting to retire and having to pay taxes on a lot of that deferred income, you look 10, 12, or 15 down the roads -- 15 years down the road, there will be something out there, that is right, but it is not enough, even if you take that into account. it is not enough in the next 10 years, where you do have at least some really tricky problems if you do not begin to deal with a number of these issues now. as we think about even social policy, is one thing if in theory you say puerto rico are
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to reduce your tax rates down dramatically, but you have to give up the health care or mortgage interest deduction. that is a dicey business. if you say birkie your rates near the where they are, and you end up with a sense of what you end up with a revolution on your hands. that is what to talk about the idea of having everybody take their deductions at a 15% level, which is fairer of course, or what romney was talking about in the last few weeks. you have a cap on how much you can take deductions. the problem with all of that is as tax policy center and other policy centers have shown, that hits the middle class and the upper middle class more than it does the rich. figuring out how you can do this and yet shift the burdens were in effect have to be, if you are born to make it saleable and
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workable, is no easy task. >> the last couple of questions raised really a larger issue about the nature of the crisis of the deficit and debt stabilization over time. how big a problem it is? should it be the overwhelmingly number one priority for a long period of time to come? i am one of these people who believe what an old friend of ours, bob carr, premier of new south wales, and now the minister of foreign affairs said, don't worry about america, there is nothing wrong with united states that one of reasonable budget deal cannot
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solve. it is worth keeping in mind. we are probably on the road to economic recovery. this deficit is going to go down as a share of gdp. we have many strengths at the same time. realistically, we have two thinks to do once we resolve the fiscal cliff problem. we need more revenues. we're getting older, and there are to have to get it up closer to 22% of gdp, and we have to manage health-care costs. that is the monster, and that means real reform, no clever games of shifting costs, because the private sector suffers from the same problem. those are real problems, and they can be dealt with. and i suspect they will and we will get our deal this next year
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on this problem, and hopefully move on to more substantial matters. >> and on that note, that happy note, that you very much, because you went to colorado about the marijuana initiative. [laughter] [applause] >> there is no break. you go right into our next panel, so hang tight for one second while we switch out shares. to keep things moving -- [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the next panel, for those of you who are veterans, tom and norm usually do the next bit,
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but we will mixup this time, because we have people who are eminently qualified to talk about the new power structure in contrast. on my right, jason dick, the house editor at "roll call," and to better to discuss a leadership in congress that will be more demographically diverse than ever before. as your guide reminds you, after two consecutive cutlasses in which the female population of both and sent was stopped at 70%, it has gone up to 22% in the senate and at least 18% in the house. congress will have its first hindu member, a new congressman from hawaii. and a little known water cooler fact of for the first time in american history and attire
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entire state- an delegation will be occupied by women. a long way to get to 50%, but that is a little bit of progress. also, a few more members of color. the hasidim -- the house democrats for the first time, their democratic caucus and the house, white men will make up a minority of that crowd. new is going to run the lives of these people? as you may know, three of the for leadership elections are the calling card for the first week of a lame duck, when the lame duck starts next week, but as norman and tom said, the real legislating will be put off until after thanksgiving. next week is about freshman orientation and leadership elections. three of the for leadership elections. we'll go to jason first to give us a little handicap on the
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republican on it -- and democratic house elections. , thank you, david. it is nice to be here. i hope everybody has caught up on their sleep. the sleep deprivation quotient in washington is up the last day after the intellection. let's start with house republicans. at the top there were not be much of a change. boehner will be the speaker of the house unless something unforeseen happens in the next few weeks. he will keep the reins. the republicans lost a few seats, but that is not going to affect his shot. he ran unopposed in ohio for his own race, and the defining conflict of the republican conference in the 112th congress, the conflict between eric cantor and john brunner the speaker is really behind -- john boehner the speaker is really behind them from everything we have seen.
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that is remarkably stable, the first three positions. john boehner will be the next speaker, eric cantor will be the majority leader, and kevin mccarthy will be the majority whip. where it gets interesting is for the conference chairman position. that is currently held by jeb hensarling, who has been a rising star for a while within republican ranks. he was a republican study committee chairman, which is the top conservative position in republican circles in the house. there are two people making a run for conference chairman, tom price, who is also a former committee chairman of the past. he is currently making a bid for conference chairman, and then kathy morris rogers. and they represent two different modes of the republican party at this point.
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cathy rodgers as an effective circuit for romney. she is from the tom foley old district in central south washington. it is an agricultural area, spokane is the population center. i believe smoke can reaches out to the east. and yet,, for those of you remember raymond carver storries. as a charismatic politician. she is able to articulate the republican agenda in a way that is not threatening to allow the people. price -- and she has been running pretty hard. price has kept a low profile, but seems to have accumulated quite a bit of support within the republican conference of the last few years. >> are you going to predict a winner? >> i am not. >> and what is nancy pelosi going to do for the rest of her
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life? i'm not i'm going to call my lifeline. right now all eyes are on nancy pelosi. about a week and a half ago, mr. pelosi announced that the democratic leadership and elections for house were going to be moved to after thanksgiving. the house republican leadership elections in the senate and the democratic and republican leadership elections are all going to be next week. this is traditionally when things happen. the fact that she set this off a couple of weeks led to speculation that she wanted to see how the election which turned out, she wanted to see -- to have some time to light up hurt stocks whether she would even retire or resign after winning her seat on tuesday. there was a lot of speculation that policy would leave immediately after it the 2010 election. she moved up the elections to
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cut back on the amount of time that people would be able to organize against her record she ultimately made a bid for the majority leader, but lost ultimately. democrats wanted a little more soul- seats and they were not afforded that time. so, we don't know what is going to happen. nancy pelosi is in california. her home in napa valley was broken into on monday. so, she actually has some little housekeeping to take care of. apparently people broken. they don't know what is missing. sort of this bizarre thing. in the event he does retire or resign from congress, steny hoyer would be the front runner to take over as minority leader. the subtext -- almost a shakespearean subtext -- between steny hoyer and nancy pelosi, they have in turn together on
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capitol hill in the 1960's and they have been rivals for years. the last 10 or 12 years, competing for leadership positions in the democratic caucus. hoyer would very much like to be minority leader and he would make a bid. the question now is whether pelosi is trying to live up somebody who she -- who would be her successor of choice. there is a lot of trauma and we just don't know where the dominoes will fall until we know her intentions. it >> just to wrap up -- who is in the next generation of would- be party leaders who would like to have pelosi's endorsement or if not the endorsement would like to move up? >> right now, outside of hoyer, the person a generous the more -- most chatter is chris van hollen, representative from maryland, a democrat. paul ryan's foil on the budget committee in the house. again, a young, sort of take
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charge, a charismatic leader. he raised a lot of money. he ran the democratic congressional campaign committee for two cycles. so, he has a lot of pole. complicated a little bit by the fact that he and hoyer our friends and they represent the same state and run in the same circles. he was the assistant to the speaker in nancy pelosi's last term as speaker. that seems to be the person who bubbles to the top the most. and a question about what debbie wasserman schultz will do. democratic committee chairman. no one does that job to long. she is looking at a way to leadership -- i hate to use terms like the smart money, but the smart money seems to be if pelosi wants to know if a successor and get behind somebody, it would be chris van hollen. >> that shakes. drama makes what is going on in the senate look tame by comparison. what is the light of the land on
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the senate side? >> i think it is pretty tame in the senate. with senate democrats adding two seats -- harry reid, dick durbin, chuck schumer, patty murray will be carried on people's shoulders to reelection as leaders. i don't really see any changes there. one thing we were hearing yesterday on the republican side, because they lost two seats, especially in states like montana and north dakota -- i did not think anybody is blaming john cornyn, the chairman, where they lost in missouri -- where candidates made flubs and that turned the race against them. but in red states where republicans should do well like montana and north dakota, they did not win those races. we were hearing yesterday that people were starting to talk about whether or not they want to make a change there. now, and ultimately think you are not going to find anybody who either has the juice of the power base or frankly the bravery to actually challenge
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cornyn, but it is interesting people are talking about it. >> just to reiterate it, cornyn does not want to do the republican campaign -- >> i am working on lack of sleep, too. he is running for whip. jon kyl is retiring and cornyn wants to move up, number two under mitch mcconnell. this is his second run at nrsc -- they picked up six seats in 2010 and here he was " -- expected to deliver the majority at the end of the cycle but things turned against them. but i don't think republicans are expecting the kind of rout they saw on tuesday. talking about republicans soul- searching and what not, and this is part of it. we talked to one senator yesterday who said we are going to be talking about a lot of different things and how to move forward and leadership races are a part of that. >> you can't beat somebody with
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nobody -- is there a name? >> john thune, the current conference secretary told us four months that he may make a run for whip. he may stay in the current spot or make a run for nrsc chairman. i suspect you will decide to stick where he is right now. certainly we were trying to get those guys on the phone yesterday and they were not taking our calls. it could be there is some decision making going on. but i think at the end of the day it is unlikely cornyn dr. oz a challenge. john thune would be the strongest challenge. >> would thune have the ability to attract the so-called tea party or the most conservative and confrontational crowd? or are they waiting for jim demint or rand paul or mike lee or somebody like that to run? >> if one of those guys of the tea party crowd ran, i don't think they will get very many
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votes. we talk about them alive but in the senate gop conference you actually have a lot more mainstream establishment republicans than you do tea party people. it would be more of a heath shuler taking on nancy pelosi after the 2010 elections, where it was more a protest candidacy ban an actual bid that anyone thinks they could win. if jim demint were to try to doesn't deny that i think he would maybe get 10 votes. >> mitch mcconnell interestingly, who is in the absolute paragon of the republican establishment, seems to have sort of one them over. an uneasy peace with rand paul, and it looks to me like mitch mcconnell wanted to be majority leader ever since he and his beagle dog won the 1984 senate race -- one of the best ads ever, youtube, mcconnell and beagle. awesome. he may never be majority leader
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because things do not automatically look all that much better for republicans two years from now than now. and he also will be facing a primary in two years. we should warn people. >> he may or may not. i think what he has been trying to do -- back in 2010, of course, mcconnell, there was a contested primary in kentucky and mcconnell back j. grayson and rand paul won, so it caused a little problems and people were upset with him. but he has done a lot of work over the past two years to really hug rand paul so close to him, and he has let rand paul do just about whatever he wants to do on the senate floor. when rand paul says i want to go on the floor and cause a big stink about something, mitch mcconnell says, go right ahead. i am not going to try to stop you. and he is really sure of -- mitch mcconnell is such a talented's -- politician. he is so smart. and in my opinion i think he has
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done everything he could possibly do to prevent someone from having any -- even if somebody wanted to challenge him from the right, i think he has done about as he could possibly do to keep them at bay. >> of course, the other aspect of leadership transition in congress will be changes on the committees. you are a handy guide. -- should probably avert some of this to the question and answer period, and hopefully you will not feel limited try to place bump the band of the three of us and ask complicated questions about the obscure sub committees and we will do our best. but in general the macro narrative about the committee chairmanships as the house republicans, as many of you may know, way back in 1994 when they came out of the minority for the first time in four years, one of their first so-called reforms was to impose a six year term
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limits on all of their committee chairman. they felt the old democratic system that was in place since the late 1950's through the early 1990's of security being paramount, and these old white guys taking the gavels in their 50's and hanging on to them into their 70's, was a bad idea. and they imposed the term limits. and they have stuck. it is fascinating to me. i would have figured by now they would have given up. as a result there will be another generation of turnover at the tops of several committees on the house side, not necessarily the senate. we should look back to these guys for an overview about what is about to happen. >> what is important to point out is there is going to be a certain amount of turnover. but one of the things that has happened among house republicans in the committee system is sort of like what has happened in california, where a lot of state officeholders are bound by term limits. where they just start running for other offices.
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that is one of the reasons antonio became mayor of los angeles because it was terminated as assemblyman -- antonio vallaigarosa. it does create problems because some of the people with seniority expect to be deferred to. it does not always happen but it does inject a little drama, which is great for us, great pop. some -- great copy. let me go through important committees where we are not expected to turn over -- paul ryan, vice president of nominee, is not going anywhere. he will be the budget chairman again, it sounds like. he will ask for a waiver because he hit his term limits but it is safe to say it will be granted. appropriations, how rogers from kentucky, about as old bull as you could get -- prince of earmarked and a reformed non-
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earmakrker will stay. and where health care and energy policy, a committee of jurisdiction there, that chairman will be staying another two years. ways and means, which might see a lot of action with fiscal cliff and tax reform, entitlement stuff, always goes through ways and means -- dave on.p, like fred andupt judiciary committee, he will make a bid for the science committee. he will find themselves in competition with james sensenbrenner, who indicated he is interested in that job as well. ralph hall, the chairman now, term limits. transportation and fende -- and infrastructure headed by john mica, he is term limited in that role and there are a few people
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will have seniority and the either have committee assignments or are not looked upon as viable. it looks like we are passing the baton to a new generation. bill schuster, the son of bud shuster, old transportation committee chairman, he is making a very strong play for the chairmanship of that. that will be just in time for congress to start thinking about another reauthorization of transportation programs, the highway bill, if you will. there is a short-term extension. they will have to revisit that in the 113th congress and representative schuster will at least have a strong claim to the gavel of that committee. i would just take off two more. -- off if youjust take tick were -- john king, from long island. three-way contest.
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candace miller, who would be the only woman on the republican side to chair a full committee, but she is from michigan and their two other from michigan -- >> and another one with intelligence, mike rogers from michigan. a fourth. >> the other mike rogers -- the house republicans have two guys named mike rogers to the be committee chairmen. the mike rogers from michigan, select intelligence, and from alabama, who also wants homeland. and the third candidate is -- i am forgetting. huh? mike mccall, from texas. former federal prosecutor from texas. actually, might be the front runner. i think. it will be interesting to see if we say that in here. foreign affairs is the other one where there will be a contested race. the incumbent chair woman, she will step down, meaning there will be no automatic women in
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chairman's role on the house side. ed royce from california want the job and so this chris smith from new jersey, who has a little more security -- a lot more security, but his advocacy for human rights -- fighting human rights is actually a negative among some of his colleagues, so to his record last time he got to chair a committee, the normally obscure veterans affairs committee, he went counter to republican orthodoxy and kept advocating for spending more and more money on veterans programs and basically kept him out. those are two others. then i should point out that one committee that also will have -- >> i should point out that one committee that also will have the same chairman but will be inserting in the public's fear and possibly over health care is oversight and government reform, headed by darrell issa. he will be there for at least one more term.
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he has promised robust oversight of the obama administration. >> i am sure he has. speaking of oversight that is one of the few places on the senate side where they -- no, speaking of government -- homeland oversight? >> tom carper is set to take over that panel. joe lieberman is retiring and susan collins, the ranking republican, is term limits it out, as we were talking about what the house of folks. senate republicans have that same rule. it looks like it will be tom cole born -- tom coburn. he has a reputation for being a finger in the i kind of guy. but he has actually been very serious and a talented group of people work for him on the committee doing investigations and what not. carper is a pretty conciliatory
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guy. i actually think they will get along pretty well. and both of them will likely be focused on the government affairs part of the committee -- homeland security. i am sure they have a particular interest in that particular subject area. >> what other top seats are changing hands? >> another big one is budget committee. kent conrad is also retiring. patty murray is up for that seat. we say she is the favorite, and i agree. i do think there is a possibility she does not take it. last time i talk to her people but they told me that she had not made a decision yet. you have to realize, when she took the dscc job back in 2010 when harry reid twisted her arm, almost breaking it, to take the job, she basically got him to get her the veterans affairs panel. and this has been a pet issue of hers for her entire career. she is so committed to veterans issues that i am a little
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skeptical about whether or not she would want to give that up and do a thankless job like budget committee chairman -- jeff sessions will tell you until he is blue in the face -- democrats have not done a budget in about three years. unless there is a real commitment on the part of harry reid to do a budget in the next year, if he really wants to be serious about that, i don't know what decision she ends up making. >> she did not have too much fun sharing the seubert committee. >> this is the other thing. she often takes on these think was jobs. when senator robert byrd was ailing and could not go to the floor and manage appropriations -- patty murray did it. even though she was not the sinking -- second ranking. all of these people were in front of for but she was the one who went to the floor and manage the bill. the super committee, did that. she did the ds when they asked
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her. and budget is also a thankless job. i do not know how much more tolerance she has for that. she may. >> it does sort approve the maksim if you want something done, find a busy person. >> she is certainly smart enough to do the job. >> she definitely has earned the right to say no. >> and she may want to. the next person and line for the job is ron -- who i think will take the energy committee because jeff bingaman is also retiring and assuming he does that and is not decide to go for the budget, it will probably be bill nelson from florida who just wondering reelection. but here is my conspiracy- minded way is going on -- let's say ron wind and decided he really want a budget and not one energy, who would be chairman? mary landrieu -- a complete nightmare for the democrats -- coming from an oil-producing
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state she is really not in line with most of the party on the issues. i had a conversation with a democratic aide not to long ago where i basically said, so, you guys will do everything you can to make sure it does not happen, right? even if patty murray decides not to take budget, you r will ron widen stay there -- their answer was, we do not think we will get to that point. which is estimated will do everything they can to prevent mary landrieu from taking the gavel. but she is close. and any other on the republican side. is it the republican leadership lansing at the thought about new ranking republican member is doing damage to the agenda? chuck grassley, inside -- installed judiciary, and orrin hatch? >> i think both of them have established their bona fides over the past couple of years. i think it will be fine. grassley has been enough of an
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attack dog. same thing with hatch -- that i did not think they will have any problems continuing. do what they are doing. >> hatch, i think, suggested when he was running in his highly contested primary that he would be less of a lucy who see deal cutter than he was for much of his career. >> he also said he knew was never running again. >> that is true. after he won the state party convention, which is how they do it in utah -- the primary is sort of secondary -- he came out and told us back in august at the republican convention that he was very committed to tax reform, he wanted to work on it. max baucus, chairman of the finance committee, also committed. it could be interesting. now that hatch has said i am not going to run again and he got past that, he could kind of do what he wants to do. he could do the deal maker that he is and wants to be.
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we will see. it depends on how much flak he gets from other people. >> one thing i wanted to talk about before we go to questions is the overall tone in the house. i would not be surprised, even though the republican majority is a little smaller, and some of the people who boehner lost are moderates and those who would cut deals, there may be people, particularly as a freshman move into leadership positions -- jim langford is making a bid for policy committee chairmanship, which is sort of a springboard for a lot of people. there seems to be a general calming down among some of but fire breathing. there is potential for some mischief on the floor. as dan neuhauser reported in the house section of the diet, some
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of the more conservative members of the republican party have contemplated now that the threshold to bring down the bill is smaller they may not even vote for war rules. but you also have people who are one year -- only one term in and they have now gone through a disappointing election and they have also seen that there are things they can get done that they feel perhaps they were not able to do in the middle of a debt crisis negotiation and all of the short-term continuing resolutions. so, the tone in the house, i would not be surprised if it ratchets down a teeny little bit because people with a little bit experience, a few more gray hairs, the maybe willing to take the long view on things. >> i am told yesterday the speaker had a conference call with all the members returning, and new members, and try to talk a little the realpolitik with
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them, and if they wanted to get off to a good start in dealing with the president next year they need to tamp down some of the most conservative aspirations and team building, and many to realize -- what i thought was interesting as i was told he said they needed to come up with 218 beauts for whatever they wanted to do, on their own, and not count the democrats to give them any help. that is of course a fundamental shift in stated policy from john been a's predecessor, dennis pastor, whose threshold -- john boehner's professor, dennis haster, a little more than half. a window that even in this post- election feeling of good feeling where everyone talks about reaching out to the other side and meeting half way, already what boehner's challenges to
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just get his caucus to get behind him enough that 218 out of 232 would vote for it. >> this is kind of a question for jason -- don't you think in he had morese, blue dog democrats to draw from an boehner does not. if banned compromises with the democrats because he cannot get all of his people, he would have to go farther to the left to get the same number of votes. >> of the democratic caucus is certainly more uniform. less separating the most conservative and liberal than four years ago. that will be a challenge. certainly the democrats, if they chose to wield power in pretty much the only way they can come as a minority party, to not cooperate -- the number of times kevin mccarthy, the majority whip, had to go to steny hoyer,
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minority whip, saying we actually need this number of democrats to pass the debt ceiling or the short term appropriations bills. you know, the democrats were remarkably amenable to providing cover for the republican majority. and if they truly wanted to wield power they would figure out a way to get something out of that. >> i will ask one more question that sort of goes to the same dynamic in the senate. you and i were talking backstage about the results -- the freshman, and what it says about where the center lies. just what your thoughts. >> i think it is interesting, the people who won on tuesday on the democratic side in particular, but even i would include dean heller of nevada who won on the republican side, really ran separate from -- not against but separate from the party platform and the president.
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clare mccaskill, john tester, heidi -- from the dakota, joe donnelly for sure from indiana, these are people who won because they were saying i am an independent voice, i will not be beholden to my party. and i think that you have an opportunity -- whether or not they take it and not is quite another question -- but you have an opportunity to have a new center in the scented. it would be mostly made up of democrats, unfortunately. but i think it will be interesting to watch all of these people and how they behave, particularly when it comes to tax reform. i think it is one place where they could be tremendously influential and be the bridge that sort of gets it done. >> terrific. ice build think we have a microphone assistance. let's -- i still think we have microphone assistance. let's play stump the band -- >> i think it is stump the
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chumps. >> anybody closer already have a microphone? >> what do you see the relationship between the hill and the cabinet agencies? committees are usually working pretty well. congressional relations people at the agencies, used the politicals of the democratic side -- but they're usually good working relationships generally. the ec made changes of the same battles? disability and health committee works well with us -- but across the changes did you see an impact? >> do you work and legislative affairs? >> i am actually in a program office but in large constituency out there. >> i would throw out the notion that i think it is relatively universally agreed on that one
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of the weaknesses of the white house and the past four years were its dealings with congress. maybe it was not the day-to-day programmatic interaction between the committees and agencies, but certainly at the top level, the president personally developed a reputation of being almost disdainful of the whole care and feeding of congress and did not do a very praiseworthy job of dealing with members really of either party. did not do a lot of care and feeding of democrats and certainly did not reach out to much to republicans and this is what i hear as one of the stated goals in the performance review for the second term. >> i think, to -- and i did not know exactly what your job is -- in the absence of earmarks, it behooves members of congress and the committees and all of them
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from both parties to have good relationships with the agencies because they need to, as we like to call it, bookmark things or like to influence the way the money is going to be spent. that does not include putting it in legislation. >> i think you are going to see a little bit of a shift again in the house. so much of the house committee's relationship with agencies was a bit adversarial, particularly when it came to the health-care law, epa regulations. the oversight and government reform's committee's investigation of atf and department of justice got hot under the caller. but as we entered a phase of a president's second term people seem to calm down a bit. the health-care law is going through another phase of implementation. regardless of how much of their might be a desire among some people to re-litigate some of
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that, they have deadlines to hit. and there's very legitimate oversight, not just oversight and government reform committee but ways and means and the energy and commerce committee and so forth on this massive new orientation to health care we will have in the country. as it enters the implementation phase in 2014 and in 2015, i think you will see a lot more hearings where you are quite literally saying what is the progress on this aspect of the health-care law. i think that has an opportunity to be a little less driven from -- the supreme court has ruled and president obama has a second term. it does not mean from the perspective of our own personal feelings that we feel good about the law, but literally there will be legitimate questions about how things are progressing, how the insurance exchanges are set up.
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that might play out in other aspects of the government as things get more underway in the second term. there is kind of a little cruise control at times in the second term administrations, but it does not seem that the white house is going for anything huge along the lines of the health- care law. the more nuts and bolts aspects of oversight might take over in the committees. >> rand paul -- >> paul ryan -- >> marco rubio. and 20 others we do not yet know about. no, john thune. >> i it can only think the republicans. i want to see if there were any democrats. >> two senators who were reelected this week, both of
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them women -- klobuchar of minnesota. spend some time at the convention in charlotte, going to delegate -- -- delegation breakfast, including one in iowa, i believe she echoed sarah palin saying she thought she could see iowa from my house. kristen gillibrand. of course, pent up demand for new yorkers running for democratic nomination for president in 2016 already. i think the order of precedence is the secretary of state runs, then the government -- governor will not, and neither runs, then gillibrand will run. >> i do not know if i just yet see her as presidential material but she has been mentioned as someone who might be a pick for the democrats senatorial campaign committee for this cycle, which would allow her to build up a huge donor base obviously and raise our national
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profile. she is certainly a very talented politician. i think she was under estimated when she was first appointed. so, who knows. >> just to echo that, there is talk the senator with the golden resume, rob portman, who has done a just about every other job in washington may run for the republican senatorial committee job in two years, which would allow him to regroup. he did not become vice president. he still harbors presidential ambitions. he is only 57. and so, if he wants to start building up a base he could do worse than do the same thing we talked about gillibrand doing -- recruiting candidates, get them elected. they are beholden to him. life goes on. >> it is worth noting, too, that the one constitutional officer, president of the senate, vice president of the united states joe biden has not ruled it out.
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>> great copy from us. when he left his polling place when a reporter asked, is it the last time -- it's sort of assumes -- i guess it is the last time you will ever get a chance to vote for yourself. and he said, i don't think so. it is interesting. very interesting. open -- >> the new york times had an article calling the other fiscal cliff as foreign policy. the shake up on the foreign relations committees -- three of the chair and a ranking member being gone but if senator kerry would move positions it would be a complete clean slate on how often set aside and wondering how it affects the president's ability to build up the top line foreign policy issues, like syria and iran, but also others like foreign aid which has a nice rubber duckie on the
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catalog today. it helps pay our salaries. >> i think bob corker will be interesting as ranking member on foreign relations. he skipped the republican convention this summer to go to the middle east. and he has been doing a lot of traveling. he is super smart about these kinds of things. i think he will try to mold himself a little bit -- not completely, like dick lugar, honestly. he will be against the hawks i think on a number of occasions. we did a story recently about him and we had john mccain talk about how much -- how much he respected and although they did not always see eye to eye. but i think the foreign relations panel in both chambers, sense, i guess, the 1960's, just as not had as much as an impact on what the president does as it used to.
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if kerry becomes the secretary of state, i guess you end up taking what he was hoping to do -- and at the administration level. but it reiterates what i am saying, which is you can't do much until you are in the administration about these kinds of things. >> i think you made a good point. if i could go back to bob corker also. he is kind of this fascinating character to me. in some ways he is almost non partisan and the way he deals with a lot of people. it may be due to his background as mayor of chattanooga. instead of going to the republican national convention in tampa over the summer, he went to the middle east. some people will use these as publicity stunts -- look at me, i am substantive while others are getting drunk. but at the same time, he is a pretty sharp guy.
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during the dodd-frank debate two congresses ago, he was actually trying to find common ground between democrats and republicans. he has shown a willingness to work with people, to exercise diplomacy within his own conference. he is not always successful. he has shown himself as a person of substance. with kerry, i agree, it if he becomes secretary of state -- which, who knows what will happen, who knows what the president's intentions are. i am sure there is a recently defeated senate candidate who would love to run for the open seat, scott brown, if kerry were to become secretary of state. it is true the foreign relations and foreign affairs committee have shown a little less influence as far as how far and policy is conducted.
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>> always good to use this as a reporting and opportunity. we don't know from our book whether it is menendez or boxer who would take the job -- who would it be? then i suspect it would be menendez. i do not think to >> i suspect it would be menendez. i do not think boxer wants to give up energy and public works. i doubt she would want to do that. chances ofry's becoming secretary of state increased when susan rice kind of flubbed her media response to the attack in benghazi, and she was already not well liked on the hill among republicans. recently when i saw former senator chuck hegel say nice things about bob kerrey who was re-running in nebraska, i thought, what in it be an interesting choice for the president to make? someone who was a longtime
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member of the foreign relations committee and who is very smart and diplomatic, which obviously have to be for the job. that is just me speculating. but for what it is worth. >> i have a question. i continue to be just dumbfounded that senator mcconnell made the statement about his number one priority to be to deny all >> a second term. not that he would think that, but he would say it -- to deny obama a second term. two questions -- why do you think it did not get even more play by the dems, and secondly, on the hill, among the republicans, were there people saying why in the world did you say that? it seemed like such an unsmart thing to say to me. >> that was a moment when even i was like, i can't believe he
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said it, too. but as i recall -- and please correct me -- i am pretty sure he said its suit the conservative crowd, either at the heritage foundation or isn't like that and he may have felt -- obviously it was public and not private -- like the 47% remarks from mitt romney -- he may have felt it would not get much press. >> he did say -- and i am not sure whether the interview was before or after the heritage remarks, but he did tell the press it was his priority. why wouldn't he? the upset party. but it is sort of mystifying that someone who is the consonant operator on capitol hill -- it is hard he spent any time of the capital not to have any respect -- regardless of your political leanings -- for mitch mcconnell because he is just so good at what he does. so intelligent and really does
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take along a nerve you of things. who knows why -- there was a lot of euphoria in the republican party in 2010, particularly this time two years ago. as i remember, there were magazine covers that were literally painted red. and people say things when they are feeling kind of goosey. >> and mitch mcconnell is so smart -- maybe he made an impolitic remark, and i don't know. but he is a man who rarely says anything he does not plan far ahead in saying. it could be -- and it is just me speculating, but knowing him i would say it could be also he was trying to put the president on notice that it was not going to be easy.
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if he wanted to get anything done, he was going to have to -- he wanted to stake out his ground, i guess, is my points. >> the way i always thought of mitch mcconnell -- and i have not spent much time in the scrums, waiting for every word for him to say something, but the way my mother would describe her father, a swedish immigrant, it was as if he is paying for his own words. that is when you want mcconnell to say something in this big firefight -- any has gone this way of looking straight through you and smiling and moving one. >> the joke about mcconnell is that half of what he said begins with the phrase -- not to be redundant, but i am not going to comment on that. i can't tell you how many times he said that to me.
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>> anyone, anyone? >> and question from your end of pennsylvania avenue, hearing and thinking about the cabinet. you talk a little bit about stayed but what are people on the hill talking about changes in other cabinet positions? >> the republicans are saying there ought to be a unity cabinet. and i am sure there will be at least one republican in the next cabinet to replace ray lahood, who is leaving. but i wouldn't expect many more than that. i also would not expect many of them to come from the hill because those seats are precious to barack obama. just as george bush famously said -- george bush the elder, even though he had great relations with members of congress, having served there, he made a conscious decision not
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to choose anybody from the hill. >> the parlor game is kind of fascinating in terms of how -- gaming out -- could you take this person from this state and would it be a special alexian or a governor who appoints, and is of the governor democrat or republican. i am guessing the white house learned of their election a little bit in 2008 when they took so many prominent democratic stars -- and i am thinking of janet napolitano. janet napolitano, they gave for the worst job in the world, homeland security secretary. it is a thankless job. anything goes wrong, it is your fault. if anything goes right, nobody notices. she is a woman who was enormously successful in my home state, which i know is not easy. coming from arizona. she won two -- one close election and coasted through the second term. she was enormously popular --
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she had tough challenges but she is certainly someone who could have been in line to either take on mccain in 2010 or flake in 2012 issue when it. now she is in a position where she might be wanting to move up to the justice department is eric holder retires -- if anybody deserves a break, eric holder would be the first one . from the last four years. or the supreme court. who knows what happens there. that is just one example of where the administration reached into the democrat bench and they raided it -- did not have people to take people like napolitano's place. there are only so many seats you can give up, particularly as we saw this grind out world war i election. two seats in the senate and eight are nine seats in the
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house. we spent $6 billion in this last election. i would agree to the president might look further into his own associations in the past. it has worked out well in the education apartment with arnie donkey, sean donovan at hud, and they look like they are in a for the long haul -- arne duncan, and sean donovan and hud. dam it will be interesting to see who replaces timothy geithner at treasury. >> trying to escape. >> he has been trying to escape for a long time. i will be interested to see the type of person the president picks going forward. obviously geithner has caused consternation on the hill and i think senators and both parties will look at the nominee, whoever it may be, very hard. >> obviously, just how these nominations go and how the senate treats them, how much,
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treats them, will be a good early indicator of what next year is going to be like. because if they start fighting over whether the next night -- nominee for treasury secretary ones -- who knows? says something nice about j.p. morgan, then we are going to be in for a long year. >> you actually took the question away from me. i was going to ask whether you thought there was movement getting appointees confirmed in the senate. >> i am not sure i understand -- all appointees? >> at our agency and from what i read at others as well, there are people who have been appointed by the president but they have not been confirmed because -- >> i see what you are saying, the confirmation backlog.
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not everyone, because there's always going to be somebody that some senator or two objects to. but i definitely think that is one place faugh where it is unquestionable that the president -- one place where it is unquestionable the president has a mandate to install who he wants at this point. i think a lot of the backlog in administration posts and the judicial posts is because they were hoping they would not have to have those people. for example, i still wonder what will happen with the consumer finance protection board now. that electorate has essentially said we 1 barack obama again, and therefore you are not rolling back that particular agency. i think you will probably see that actually probably happen in lame duck. i don't think that he will have to wait for some of the appointees for the new congress. i think a lot of them will get cleared quickly.
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>> federal judges -- there are several federal judges, including famously an appeals court judge to sit on the appeals court in boston. he is from portland and have been backed by both republican senators. he was part of what they call -- sermons -- thurmond rule. >> thurmond leahy rule. >> and biscayne, from maine -- king, claiming the party alignment is up for grabs. his initial request is he would align with whatever party agreed to push for essentially doing away with the current filibuster rules. harry reid made clear he is not willing to go that far. i know still think angus king
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will align with a democrat. he endorsed obama. >> and he said yesterday he had conversations with him in the past 24 hours. >> and a phone call with bob corker. the point being that this is the kind of thing that i think a lot of freshmen -- king most vocal among them, they will come to the senate and say let us not spend our first months of this silliness of gratuitous filibuster and blocking a holding everything. let's clear out the underbrush. like you are speaking about, who none of us ever heard of. these are assistant secretary is -- assistant secretaries that one or two senators even carry about. then i think a wrinkle is depending on how much it gets done in a lame duck and how much a new congress has to deal with particularly janet we're february -- if they are still struggling to find a deal on the
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debt ceiling and find a way to avert this fiscal cliff. if they go right into a problem with appropriations because the current continuing resolution expires in march, it sucks some of the oxygen out of the room. it would be great if they could just get all the homework done right now and go to bed at a reasonable hour, right? but it is not going to happen most likely. and there is going to be a lot of attention focused on these leftover problems, which there was last year and the year before and the year before. i remember, two years ago during the lame-duck when they made the deal and struck the deal on a tax rates, i thought, oh, no, it looks like we will be dealing -- it means we will be dealing with this right after the election. the more you put that stuff off, the more it piles up and gets more difficult to deal with just the real nuts and bolts part of governing, which is getting the assistance secretary of labor
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and the regional directors for epa and hhs in their jobs so they can tell -- from a political basis, they can say this is the direction we are taking and what the president has done. it is a problem. it is a potential fix it they are facing. but, who knows, maybe they will give us an early christmas present and wrap up a lot of the business. >> i remember, chuck schumer and i think lamar alexander who are trying to push to this bill through the senate that would reduce the number of appointees that the senate has to confirm. i do not know if the house will go along with it but it could come back in the 113th. >> on that optimistic note we are adjourned until after lunch break down the hall to the right -- and we will reconvene in a little bit. thank you. >> thank you very much.
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>> coming up, more live coverage of this "cq" roll call forum. coming up after the break, economic issues and how it all the facts k street and lobbying. again, live coverage starting at 1:45 p.m. eastern here on c- span. in the interim, the latest on hurricane sandy recovery and response from fema administrator and the red cross senior vice president of disaster services. the area around new york was hit with snowstorms last night and we will find out how the agencies are coping, starting at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. new york democrat senator charles schumer spoke this morning at christian science monitor it event, hosted a discussion about 14 sandy recovery and what he expects to happen at congress lame-duck session. several reporters were there and sent out these tweets --
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we covered senator schumer's speech and we will have it for you on the c-span schedule sometime this afternoon. also this from chad from fox news -- saying congresswoman morris rogers will make a formal bid for house republican conference chair, the fourth largest leadership post in the house. it is currently held by jeb hensarling from texas. the 112th congress returns tuesday to start its lame duck session, before the new congress meets in january. the house has not yet released the start time yet but we will have live coverage here on c- span when they do get underway. the senate dabbles in at 2:00 p.m. eastern, starting with a bill to give up until mid --
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hunter and fisherman more access to federal land. that is c-span2. no word on when they will take up the expiring tax increases and the sequester known as the fiscal cliff. >> c-span programming is good because they tried to cover both sides of the issues and the moderators especially on "washington journal" do a good job stang detached and offering their opinions and just saying, what is your opinion? >> covering the different, house and senate and the other -- woodrow wilson center and other public affairs centers in d.c. that i normally would not be exposed to. >> he watches c-span on comcast. c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979 and brought to you as a public service by your television provider. former "the washington post" pentagon reporter has a new book
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called "the general's" why it world war ii generals are in high regard. that is on book tv. exit polls show president obama got significant support from the african-american community and the -- looks at the impact on the 2012 elections and examine what the outcome of the election means for minority communities in the u.s.. this is just under an hour. >> good afternoon. i am president and ceo of the joint center for political and economic studies. one of the nation's leading research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses primarily on issues of concern to african- american and other people of color. i want to welcome you here today, the day after the election, to our assessment of the impact the african-american vote in at the 2012 presidential
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elections. while the president's reelection victory was the size of with regard to the number of electoral votes he won, it was nonetheless a close race in terms of national popular vote, and by virtue of the fact that the margins were closed in quite a few of the critical battleground states. analyst will continue to look at and interpret the results for some time to come, but i was struck last night by several things. the fact that the president was able to hold onto his vote pulls from 2008 in a number of the key battleground areas despite much speculation that he would be hurt by dampened enthusiasm among his 2008 supporters. second, by the rapid change in the demographics of some key states, particularly nevada and colorado and to some extent, virginia. not long ago, these were some of the rest of the red states, and we have watched through the election cycles of our
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population in these and other states shifting and changing and we see a number of significant changes in voting patterns. in 2008, president obama was swept into office with 97% of african-american votes and 43% of the white vote. and 63% of the latino vote. today, we look forward to hearing from the senior research associate on his analysis on how these numbers faired in the 2012 elections and what it meant to the outcome we all watched last night and into the early morning hours. with that, let me call on the doctor for his analysis and remarks. that will be followed by questions from you. thank you very much. [applause] >> good afternoon. good afternoon.
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the 2012 elections are over and the elections were historic. there is one particular aspect of the elections that was historic that i would like to talk about first. it is not simply the reelection of the first african-american president. 2012 will be the last campaign where one of the major parties seeks to get elected solely with the white vote. is this on? 2012 was a clear showing that the country is now a multi- racial, multi-as that country
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and for a successful political party or a particle movement, they are going to have to appeal to a much broader swath than simply non-hispanic white people. the first thing i want to point out -- 2004, when john kerry ran against george w. bush, the proportion of the electorate that was white, according to the exit polls, was 79%. 79 and everyone hundred voters were non-hispanic white. four years later, and in 2008, that number had declined to 74%. this year, that number declined to 72%. in the meantime, the african- american share of the vote over that time increased from 11 to
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13. the hispanic share from six to 10. and the asian american share from one to three. we are experiencing serious demographic change. if you look at these different populations, the white population, the non-spec white population in the united states is a seat -- it aging. the median age is 42. that means half the white people in the united states are older than 42. the median age for the black population is 33. the median age for the hispanic population is 25. half the hispanic population in the united states right now is the younger than 25 years old. what does that mean?
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it would not mean anything if our politics and parties were not largely based upon race and class and ethnicity. right now, they are. the republican party and certainly their candidate this year, a former governor -- former gov. romney of massachusetts, pursued a strategy of only appealing to white votes, particularly white conservative votes. he was successful and so far as he defeated among white voters -- he defeated president obama, 59% to 39%. he had 20% more than president obama received. of the white vote. in past elections, that would have been catastrophic for a cabinet in the united states. -- candidate in the united
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states. but despite the fact that president obama only received 39% of the white vote, he won the election 50% to 40%. he is about -- he has about 2.75 million more votes than governor romney. how did african-americans do? there are two aspects of the african-american voters want to talk about. it's not like there was truly a national campaign in 2012. if you lived in a swing state, you saw politics was all consuming. that was all that life was about, the 2012 election. on the other hand, if you did not live in a swing state, you probably were not entirely aware there was an election going on at all. in terms of the black vote, want to point out a couple of things. before i point out be increase
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in the black vote, want to mention one thing about gender. a major aspect of this election was about appeals to women, the phraseology was i believe "the war on women." there were issues having to do with rape, abortion, contraception, that were major elements of the campaign. there was a gender gap, and the gender gap was essential in terms of the outcome of the election. but i want to mention there was a recurrence of the black gender gap. there has for a long time been bought heavily talked about, but there has been a black gender gap in politics. in some elections, and has been as much as 10% points between how black men and black women voted.
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this year, 80 percent -- 87% of black men voted for president obama. but 96% of black women voted for president obama. of the 13% of the vote in 2012 that african-americans made up, 8 for women and five were men. the ratio of black men to black women in the election was five to eight. there were a lot more black women voting and black women were a lot more democratic in their vote than black men. now, the states. this election was concentrated on particular swing states. i want to point out some things in terms of the impact of black turnout in these swing states. i would start in terms of the impact of michigan.
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in 2008, remember 2008, all of you remember 2008? a historic occasion -- the first time there was a black nominee for president. in 2008, the black share of the vote in michigan, according to the exit polls, was 12%. last night or yesterday, the black share of the vote was 16%. if you remember, michigan was one of the state's the two parties jostled around. eventually, the republicans decided they were not going to win. one of the reasons they were not going to win is because the black share of the vote in michigan went from 12% to 16%. that's a big increase in terms of the vote. missouri, the black share of the vote increased from 13% of all voters in missouri to 16% of
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all voters. in north carolina and florida, the black share of the vote stayed the same. 23% in north carolina and 13% in florida, but i remind you, in those states, the same share as 2008, and those states both witnessed a large increase in voter turnout from 2008 to 2012. the only way black voters stayed the same share was increasing their turn out as much as everyone else in those states. finally, i would like to point out of ohio, which i assume that some of you have seen a few stories about ohio. in ohio, remembering back to 2004, the republicans were going after the black vote in
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ohio. george bush and karl rove using the issue of gay marriage were vigorously going after the black vote and increased their share of the black vote between 2000 and 2004 from 9% to 16%. there was a republican candidate going after the black vote in ohio. not in 2012. over that time, the black share of the vote went from 11 to 15. president obama won ohio by 2%. he got 90% of the vote in ohio. you do the math. that increased from 11% to 15% of all voters in ohio and 97% of them were voting for president obama, that is where
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president obama's margin of victory came from. it came from the black vote in ohio. it was a very, very impressive vote. similarly in virginia, the black vote was 20 percent -- 27% -- 93% of african-americans in virginia voted for president obama. as a current resident of virginia, i would suggest to you that virginia is not a blue state anymore -- excuse me, not a red state anymore. it is not a blue state, it is not a purple state. what virginia is right now is a blue state in presidential election years and a red state in non-presidential election
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years. if, in fact, the same number of people turned out to vote as it turned out to vote yesterday in virginia in the governor's election next year, or in the midterms two years from now, a virginia would be a settled blue state. it would not look like massachusetts, but it would probably look like washington state. another thing i want to say about race. it is not the case that race represents something universal. the difference is represent something universal in terms of american politics. it is not the same everywhere. there were several states where a majority of white voters voted for president obama. in fact, if you look at new
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england, a majority of white voters in the mainland voted for president obama. he won in maine. he certainly did not when made with black vote. he won vermont. he certainly did not when vermont with black votes. or hispanic votes. there were at least eight states where president obama won a those states. it what -- is white vote did decline and remember, we have 7.9% unemployment. this was something of a nasty campaign. i would not describe it as an uplifting as the campaign in 2008 was. but, in terms -- is white vote went from 43% in 2008 to 39% this time around. there was a decline in 2008,
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there were 16 states where president obama won the majority of the white vote. the share of the white vote in alabama, he got 15. in mississippi, he got 10. it's not like there have been a lot of stories in the past three weeks -- the "washington post" did a story on the race gap in voting it. ap released a poll about racism in the united states. it is not evenly distributed problem around the country. there are places where race is a places. and there are places where race is not that much of a problem of
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all. in terms of the problem of race, it is more of a regional problem than a national problem. there are certain places in the country, appalachia, the gulf coast, where race is more of a problem than other places around the country. now, i would like to say a word about the congress. this was a record year for black candidates running for federal office. there were 59 democratic nominees, black democratic nominees to federal office, the
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house and senate. there were 13 republican nominee should -- nominees for a total of 72. that's the highest it has ever been. how did they do? there were -- there will be several new members of the
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congressional black caucus when the new congress convenes. some of them are a surprise. they were not known. i would like to give a shout out to tony harrison who point out to be somebody i had totally missed, but there will be several new members of the congressional black caucus, in particular, you have donald payne jr. who will be succeeding his father representing new jersey. another democrat was elected in nevada. the first time there is an african-american serving in congress from nevada. in district 3 in ohio, the second black woman in congress from ohio. in texas, district 33, and now texas has four black house members from texas. there are a couple of races that have not been called yet. one in arizona in the ninth district. there is a black republican candidate named vernon parker, who is running only a couple of thousand votes behind his opponent. all of the ballots have not been tallied and it is a possibility this person, he is behind by 2000 points but there's a possibility this person could be elected i do have to mention alan west. alan west right now is about 2300 votes behind his opponent.
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he is running in a different district and he ran in s. as you can tell by the results from florida, president obama's campaign made a big effort to turn out their voters, and i don't think president obama's voters were in fact going to vote for alan west while they were at the polls. alan west may or may not be joining the new congress when it reconvenes. i think that is the highlights in terms -- i would reiterate, in terms of the swing states, the african-american vote was absolutely crucial to president obama. in ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, florida, and virginia. i would also throw out that there were several democratic senate nominee is who were
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elected, who benefited from a substantial african-american vote. more than a quarter of the votes in missouri were african- american. sherrod brown, and in ohio, almost more than 30% of his votes were from african- americans. bob casey, more than 20% of his votes in pennsylvania came from african-americans. the success the democrats had with their senate candidates this year dovetails very nicely with president obama's campaign in terms of turning out african-american voters. i the guy will stop there and entertain questions >> do we have any questions? >> [inaudible]
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[indiscernible] >> you talk about some of as being regional, what are your thoughts on some of the patterns of the patterns you see in terms of that regional stuff? is there anything that jumps out at you? >> last year at this time, i was presenting a paper called resegregation in southern politics. i have not had the chance this morning to look at arkansas, at the state legislature. i know all members of the state members of the legislation and arkansas were up for election this year and all lot of money was put into the state to change the state legislature from being democratic to be republican. if it does in fact flip in this election, all 22 of the state legislatures in the south will
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now be republican majorities. >> we're going to break away virtually all of the black state legislators in the south will be serving in the minority. if you look at the southern state constitutions in terms of the nature of their government, the state legislatures are the key source of power in southern politics, more than anything else. in fact, alabama, which has the longest constitution of being a
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democratic entity -- i would use that word loosely -- the democratic entity in the world, actually had some language on their ballot this year to chase the language in the constitution. i actually have a friend at law school whose father used to call me and talk about the constitution and our that because this man was. >> my question has to do with the 2004 campaign. you talked about how the republicans have a strategy -- had a strategy of seeking a minority vote.
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what happened in 2008 with that strategy? >>um - part of it was the personnel involved. the bush family has always had a comfortable relationship with african-americans. the prominent american average americans associate with them and, people like colin powell, louis sullivan, condoleezza rice. when bush was president -- when he was president and his presidency had not fall apart yet, the expressions of racism would not be tolerated in the republican party, known.
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i'm not suggesting that john mccain was a racist but john mccain had no association of black people whatsoever. the press like mitt romney this year. i know they always try out some black people that facility i know. and his age career he had with his ascent toward all the things in terms of his history and john mccain's family comes from mississippi by john mccain had no association with black people whatsoever. so when he ran for the presidency in 2008, black people were not even on a radar. at the present obama got elected, could there isn't a not
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necessarily true belief by republicans that the african- american vote was no longer -- was basically off-limits. i believe the rise of publicly- expressed racist sentiments and the attitudes that go with them came from the fact that a lot of republicans decided black people are off limits. so we don't have to appeal to black people. karl rove into a dozen forethought," i know black people and i know there are lettuce. i know they don't like the marriage. let's go to ohio and go to churches and african-american
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leaders and appealed to those african-americans based upon our shared values. i have shared the is that we're against the marriage. what happened to the tea party when the president was elected? >> the republican party will have to make a decision. i thought there were going to make the decision in 2008 which they didn't. as a sociological observation, or maybe it is biological, people adapt with failure. if you are successful, you keep doing the same thing over and over again. for example, once one of reagan was elected in 1980, even this year, some of these people including mitt romney's spoke like it is 1980.
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they thought barack obama is jimmy carter. he is weak. the helicopter crash in air run. the helicopters did not crash. and it is not 1980. they repeated this pattern and they see it as a template and don't realize that what the country was in 1980 is not what the country is right now. the country is an entirely different place. in terms of adapting, the republicans adapting, i thought 2006 and 2008 to taken together was a great failure on the part of the party. the loss the house, that lost the senate, they lost the presidency. that would be the realize time - think what their approach would be to politics and campaigns.
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instead of adapting and moving forward, they tried to adapt by moving backward. i think that is something they will have to seriously decide. the tea party people have cost the republicans at least six seats in the united states senate. they have those six seats, the republicans would have a majority in the united states senate. but tea party said," top aide in looks pretty good. richard murdock he looks pretty good. it looks pretty good to who? >> i am an observer of politics and i don't know if you study this but i would like to axe the
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question -- have been studied the political landscape as far as the rising political interest of the majority of muslims in this country which is black american muslims, with the advent of barack obama and his name and he was supposedly raises a moslem? keith ellison is active as a muslim as well. have you done any study on this matter? it is this symbolic of something to come from the black american- moslem community as well? >> you want to know if i have done any studies in terms of the
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influence or impact or the effect of black moslems in terms of american society. no, i haven't. i am aware of some of the trends in terms of the numbers of black muslims. i am aware of some conflict that has existed in the past between african-americans and groups like apac about middle eastern policy. believe it or not, we don't usually talk about american muslims, but i am a favorite of bible calls. . i frequently get calls from people about politics. >> given your experience or the past 20 or so years looking at
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both parties and where the country is going to my flat -- democratically -- demographically, looking at 2016, do you think republican party will adapt as you talked about earlier for 2016? do you think a democratic party will continue to stay in tune with the demographics of this country like they have so far this year. you see some kind of shift between the two parties. >> some people have noticed this but not a lot of people. president obama is not especially liberal president. a short brian knows what the president looks like feels the same way. there are people like andrew there are people like andrew sullivan who is a

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